Sarah Schenirer was a pioneer of Jewish education for girls and began a change in the way women were perceived in Orthodox Judaism. In 1917, she founded the Bais Yaakov (lit. "house of Jacob") school network in Poland.
Background
Sarah Schenirer was born into influential rabbinic family in Krakow, Poland on July 15, 1883. Her parents, Bezalel Schenirer (born in Tarnów) and Reizel were both descendants of well-known rabbis. Her father provided her with religious texts that he had translated into Yiddish. In her memoirs, she describes herself as the unassuming and withdrawn daughter of Belzer Hasidic parents.
Education
Her friends teased her for her desire to learn the Torah and called her "the little pious one." She attended elementary school for eight years. She then became a seamstress.
Schenirer occasionally attended lectures at the university, where she befriended young Jews who were in a campus program called Ruth, where she observed them lighting candles on the Sabbath, in violation of halakha. She perceived from this the need for better Jewish education.
Career
Schenirer returned to Kraków in 1917, where the inspiration she received in Vienna led her to seek to establish a school for girls. She initially approached her brother, who suggested that the idea wouldn't catch on. However, he agreed to take her to see the Belzer Rebbe in Marienbad, who gave her his blessing in two words, "Mazel uBrocha."
Schenirer established a kindergarten with twenty-five students in her seamstress studio. She instilled in her students a love for the Torah, and excitement to do mitzvos. Her sensitivity and care for others were something her students strove to emulate. Schenirer also began to set up lectures and a library for Jewish women.
The lessons were a blend of Lithuanian-style study of the Hebrew texts, together with Hasidic-style character development. Schenirer succeeded in overcoming initial resistance against this new type of school, receiving the approval of the leading rabbis of the time, such as the Gerrer Rebbe, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter and Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan (known as "the Chofetz Chaim"). Within 5 years, Schenirer's lessons grew into 7 schools with 1,040 students. By 1933, there were 265 schools in Poland alone, with almost 38,000 students.
In 1933, Schenirer stepped down as the official head of the movement, but remained very much involved until her death in 1935. On March 1, 1935, Schenirer died from cancer at the age of fifty-one.
Connections
Sarah Schenirer married young, but was divorced from her first husband, either because he wasn't religious enough, or because the couple was childless. Schenirer married again later in life. Although she remained childless, her students would speak of themselves as being her children. They are considered the legacy of Frau Schenirer.